"Well, thank you for your time, nonetheless. I'll speak to Layla and we'll see what happens." 

She bows and looks over at Kamil. "Let's go."

He nods, and they proceed out of the garden.

Zamir watches them as they go. 

Something in him wants to say no, stop, turn around - 

He pushes it down. He's happy here. It's not worth the risk to his reputation. Just meeting with a shemtej of Rana's reputation, even escorted, is enough that he'll be managing it for days. He is an unmarried man, after all.

Back in the sisters' tent in camp that evening...

"I talked to my alchemist," Rana says. "He said no. He might listen to you, though."

"Who is this alchemist, anyway? What's his name? If your initial approach didn't work, we should plan our second one more carefully."

Layla sits cross-legged in the tent: her hands fit together the pieces of a bowl she wants to repair with Mending.

"His name is Zamir. He's... pretty typical, as Osirian men go. He cares about women, but in kind of an abstract, distant way. He looked at Kamil as if he might have been the person who came up with our plan. He refused on the grounds that the contraceptive might be used as an abortificant and that he knew me by reputation and didn't trust that I'd handle it safely."

Rana turns her golden-cat charm over in her hands as the thinks. 

"You say he's typical, but then he accepted a meeting with a shemtej woman of your colorful reputation. That's not usual. Do you know him already somehow? Why did he accept?"

Layla fits two pieces of the bowl together carefully and settles them so Mending will leave no lines behind. 

"We shared a class together at the scribal college when I was learning my letters. I would have been... fourteen? He seemed fascinated by me when we were younger, he wouldn't stop looking at my ears. I've heard that he tried to set up an alchemy business with a shemtej partner before, but it fell through. They say the partner was unreliable, but... You know how the rumor mill treats us."

Rana runs a finger down the back of her golden cat charm, lips pursed.

"So he prefers amurrun women? That's not so uncommon, even if most men would be loath to admit it."

She mends, then rolls the bowl over in her hands to check if her repair so far is solid.

"The business partner was a man, I'm fairly sure, or else I would have heard much more interesting rumors." 

Rana shakes her head. "I think it's bigger than that. He says he's happy to live with his father, but I think that's a lie. He couldn't meet my gaze when he said it. He might not know it, but if you look at his history it's clear he's slowly dying from being cooped up in that estate with no-one but his family to speak to. The fascination with the amurrun - it's about escape, for him. He wants to be free like we are, even if he can't square it with what he's been taught."

"I think you have the core of something, there, but if he needs to leave so badly, what makes him stay?" 

Layla strokes her hand along the surface of the bowl as she tests for any slight imperfection.

"What makes anyone stay in a bad relationship? Habit. The fear of letting people down. The fear that escape will be worse. I've seen it a thousand times in the married women I sleep with."

Rana taps the charm in her hand. "It's all the same. There's never any good reason. Only the vain hope it will somehow get better."

Layla shakes her head. "You've never seen that the way I do. Those women, the ones who turn to you - they stay out of love, some last ember of genuine desire for the people they're with. There are times when they are forced, when there is no other option, but I've seen many of them come to that realization and then act on it and escape. The ones who stay feel that... it's their duty somehow, to be good to the children, or to satisfy their partner, or whatever other reason that the situation is good and okay. And I think it might not be so different with this Zamir. You say he cares about his reputation..." 

She turns the bowl over again, settles another piece into place. 

"Does he care about others, this Zamir? Does he have a soft heart?"

"I think so, yes. He was not unmoved by my appeals to the good of the married women who'd buy amberwine."

"Then perhaps he is still confusing his good reputation for the fate of his soul," Layla says. "If he thinks that being honorable is what being good is."

She clicks another piece into place and fuses it to the bowl.

"It is a common problem. So then he will not go because it would dishonor his father?"

She frowns. "I don't see why that could be the case. It's not as if there is some... agreement with his family that he must stay home and do nothing to advance himself. To the contrary, wouldn't his father want him to advance and succeed?"

"It is a common fault of Lawful people that they get tangled up in their own rules. I doubt it's conscious for him; it just feels scary to act independently after he failed at his previous business, so he justifies it with a rule in his internal structure of this-is-how-I-must-be."

She turns the bowl over in her hands. "I think I know how to get this to work for us."

"I must admit I don't see it."

"We get his father to send him on our expedition. He won't dare refuse a command from him."

Layla snaps the last piece into place in her bowl. "Don't you think that's the obvious solution?"

"And how do you propose to get a meeting with his father, much less convince him to send his son on this expedition?"

"You forget, I am the formal head of the Golden Stone caravan. I have resources and contacts. I'll get one of my male, non-shemtej business partners to present the deal formally and act as if I am merely a middlewoman. Wouldn't any good Osirian father seize the opportunity to send his useless son off on a all-expenses-paid trading venture and perhaps broaden his horizons?"

She raises an eyebrow. "I doubt it'll be hard."

"It could work. I don't see how you're going to get around the fact that you're a Shemtej trading in amberwine, though."

"Trust me. I don't think you understand how oblivious most men are. He'll probably think the trading venture will fail, but who cares? It's free travel for his son and he doesn't have to pay his upkeep. If the venture succeeds then his son is out of his hair for good. Never mind that the trade is in some obscure alchemical formulation."

Rana pauses in thought for a long moment, then nods.

"Alright. We'll try it your way."

The next morning, in a merchant hall in the city...